By Terry Hayes, RN MSN, CPNP, CNOR
VP Client Experience at PerfectServe
Twitter: @PerfectServe
Regardless of the hospital or specialty office, nurses are an essential piece of patient-centered healthcare delivery models. As a former pediatric nurse practitioner, I know firsthand the amount of responsibilities nurses juggle, all while maintaining the personal, bedside manner needed to ensure patients and their families feel comfortable and knowledgeable about treatment and care. Nurses are often the first and last point of contact to provide care for a patient, and a critical part of the clinical communication process, especially in the digital age.
Unfortunately, as healthcare data breaches surge and the need to prepare for HIPAA audits increases, nurses must also factor data security into their daily routines. Since 2010, the HHS Office for Civil Rights reported more than 1,400 breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals, and this number is expected to escalate. Given nursing’s dynamic role in communicating with team members across the care continuum (physicians, other nurses, patients, etc.), it’s important that nurses, as well as other healthcare professionals, are provided the right levels of secure connectivity to deliver quality care for patients efficiently.
Nurse must also understand the need for security in many of their day-to-day activities. Here are a few areas nurses must constantly keep in mind:
- Within the care setting – Can the patient information be viewed (or heard) by anyone besides the patient? Are the connected medical devices in use secured? Could another care provider or visitor access the device if the nurse steps away momentarily? With the growing use of telemedicine, does the patient have the right set-up to participate in portals, video calls, etc.?
- Outside of a care setting – Are documents sent to the correct printer and/or fax, and are those documents picked up quickly? Can non-authorized personnel easily access EHRs and other technologies? Are any BYOD technologies secure? Does the outside setting have appropriate procedures in place to assure patient confidentiality and, if so, is it monitored?
- During a care transition – Do the appropriate care team providers have access to relevant information? Are any others that participate in care that should be considered? If so, what level of information should be shared with those providers? Are all communications channels, such as a voicemail or email system, fully secure and HIPAA-compliant?
While education is critically important to ensuring nurses understand how to keep patient information secure, it’s also important for hospitals and other providers to identify processes and technological solutions to improve security, meet HIPAA standards and protect the confidentiality and integrity of patient data. This is particularly true as nurses (along with the rest of the patient care team face) more pressures to meet the demands of value-based care.
Nurses: how do you make data security a priority in your day? What challenges have you run into while balancing efficient and personal patient care with security?
This article was originally published on The Connected Clinician and is republished here with permission.
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